Freda raised her eyes, but her glance passed Dick and remained fixed on a face that appeared at the window beyond. A young man, with sandy hair and moustache, was looking in with a cynical grin. Dick turned quickly, when he saw the change on the girl’s face. His own expression altered also.
“Bob! Back already!” he cried.
The young man had climbed in. Nodding at his cousin, with a glance at Freda which she found exceedingly offensive, he asked:
“Well, and who is the little girl?”
Perhaps the girl’s mind, having retained a child-like purity, was able at once to detect the taint in that of Robert Heritage; but certainly the persistent stare of his small grey eyes, which he honestly believed to be irresistible, affected her no more than the gleam of a couple of marbles; while every other feature of his face, from the obtrusively pointed nose to the thin-lipped mouth, seemed to her to betray ugly qualities, the names of which she scarcely knew. He, on his side, regarded her face with a bold, critical stare, which changed into contempt the moment he caught sight of her crutch. Dick grew red with anger.
“You didn’t get my telegram then?” he said shortly, interposing his person to shield the girl from his cousin’s impudent gaze.
“No, I got no telegram. What was it about?”
“Come into the house and I’ll tell you.”
He moved to the door. Robert would not let him open it.
“What! and interrupt your studies of the maim, the halt, and the blind?” he asked, in a low voice which, however, the girl’s quick ears caught.